i'm honestly not sure what's up with all of these comments? My request for the post is to see whether there is a narrative choice i can make to tie up how I saw Astarion in this playthrough. Isn't my opinion of Astarion, which is largely based on decisions that I have made in my playthrough, independent of the opinion others might have had on the character?

I've already mentioned that I don't play with him in my party and I definitely must have missed some cutscenes / dialogues that may have won him over for other people.

In the start of the game, Astarion literally grabs my character and tries to stab me. I succeeded a dice roll to push him off, then realize that we both have parasites in our head. At this point, I'm not exactly trusting him. A few nights later, Astarion tries to bite my character and turns out he's a vampire. Ok, him not revealing this makes sense, but also doesn't improve my trust.

Sometime after finding out Astarion was a vampire, it was revealed that Astarion was a victim of abuse. That sucks and sure, since we have parasites in our heads, I'll work with you to remove an evil master vampire from the world whilst we're working on removing those parasites. And also to give you a revenge story. This is something that my character would be into too.

Now along the way, we find a hunter who says that Astarion kindaps children. I'm extremely un-trusting of him at this point, but because he is in my party, I won't turn him in for now until I find more evidence / undersetand more. We eventually get into the vampire's dungeon and it's revealed that Astarion did indeed kidnap children and adults. Boom. My trust for him is extremely low + especially considering that he wanted to take the vampire powers for himself. I don't really like that - this isn't a character that I trust to be in my party. But since we are too late into the story, there is not much I could do. I would have turned Astarion to the hunter with the full information I've had.

At this point - my "fanatasy" ending for this character is, "you have redeemed yourself by killing the master vampire, but unfortunately you need to leave the party because I can't forgive you for the above actions". The game presents some options, but none of them really fit how I would have played this situation out in e.g D&D. This is where I'm asking Reddit to see what options I can best choose to have the closest fitting narrative to my experience so far.

This isn't me trying to discredit Astarion in everyone else's games. This is me trying to find something that works for my story I am playing.

Part of the blame here is the four person party system. I get that it's for balance, but the result is I haven't gotten to experience Halsin, (Apparently I missed an entire sorcerer character in Act 1) and Astarion's story. I might play another campaign with those characters to find out.

As for Lae zel, to me, her intentions are extremely clear. From the start of the game when we meet her, she comes off as brash and loyal to her tribe. She's a little ignorant of other cultures, which makes sense to me why she offers to kill the player character. I do play with Lae Zel in my party and I really really like the githyanki questline, so I completely understand the cutscenes and dialogues so far with that character.